Chapter 12: Learners Choosing and Creating

This final chapter picks up several themes that have been threaded through the book. One of these concerns learner autonomy – the question of how much responsibility learners should take for their own studies. This links to the question of teachers offering choice, and to a second theme of the chapter – the importance of creativity in chemistry and in learning chemistry. Many of the examples of teaching techniques discussed in the book showcase the ingenuity of chemistry teachers in devising new ways to support learners and teach the subject. Here, the focus is more on the scope for providing learners with tasks that allow them to engage creatively with the subject. Another theme that has recurred in the book is the challenge of learning from research studies into classroom teaching and learning. The chapter reiterates how the diversity of teaching contexts means that although the book can offer teachers many ideas, and the research literature some evidence of examples of their effectiveness, the teacher needs to approach such advice and guidance as sources for building testable hypotheses regarding ‘will that work well here?’ The book closes by identifying the need for more scholarly work which is able to review areas of chemistry education literature with a critical eye, to produce teacher-friendly accounts of the state of knowledge relating to the various specific pedagogic approaches and teaching techniques used in chemistry education.